Short Bio

In November 1984 I went to Pisa, where I attended the University. I earned my degree on March 16th, 1989, defending a thesis in Analytic Number Theory [D1], whose advisors were Roberto Dvornicich and Alberto Perelli. About a year later I moved to Genoa, for my Ph.D. studies under Alberto Perelli, and I successfully defended my thesis [D2] in Rome on July 26th, 1994.

Still in my fourth and final year as a graduate student, in September 1992 I won a competition for a position as Ricercatore in Parma, officially in the subject of Mathematical Analysis, since Number Theory, as such, is unknown to the Italian legislator (in this case, ignorance is not bliss, not mine at least!). I moved there soon afterwards. I finally succeded in obtaining the habilitation (idoneità) to be an Associate Professor in February 2004, but the Central Government prevented all Universities from hiring personnel for two years (alas, this is the literal truth) and I started working as Associate Professor on New Year's Eve, 2004.

In 2020 I obtained a totally useless habilitation to Full Professorship (about 10–12 years later than I should have). I do not kneel in front of my so-called “superiors” and they will go to any length (including slander; read their assessment of my work: it is all written out in official and public documents) to prevent the University from hiring me as Full Professor.

Beside the picture in the upper left corner, you can see my portrait here, in one of the fairly rare cases when I am shaved and my hair is simultaneously combed.

Other Interests

• I helped my great-uncle Augusto Buonafalce with his project on a cryptography book by Leon Battista Alberti. We privately published his book Leon Battista Alberti e l'Invenzione della Cifra Polialfabetica (I was responsible only of typesetting and layout, and possibly for a little encouragement from time to time), which was quoted in the Catalogue for the Alberti display in Mantova in 1994. Luckily, the project took off immediately afterwards, and my uncle's efforts were rewarded by full publication of his critical text. The critical text itself has been translated since both into Italian and into English. I also translated Alberti's text into English. See the Wikipedia page fo details.
• I translated J. H. Conway & R. K. Guy's The Book of Numbers into Italian.
• I love reading about ancient history (and I mean ancient!): in particular, ancient Greece and ancient Egypt, which, I believe, are the cradle of the Western civilization (a few thousand miles and a few thousand years away from Hollywood, which is just the opposite). I have been in Egypt only once, fulfilling a thirty-year long wish: the monuments there are simply stunning, and as a writer I am not good enough to describe the impression they made on me. I visited most of Greece on several different holidays: the place is really beautiful and people are very friendly there. Except for the language, it feels like home (that is, like Tuscany).

Friends

• Alessandro Languasco
• Danilo Bazzanella
• Enea Zaffanella
• Francesco Pappalardi (author of the picture which is accessible by clicking on the one in the upper left corner)
• Roberto Bagnara
• Roberto Marangoni

  Links and addresses of things I like

  
  Writers and People
  • Ambrose Bierce and his Devil's Dictionary
  • Andrea Camilleri
  • Arthur C. Clarke
  • Richard Dawkins
  • Arthur Conan Doyle and in particular Sherlock Holmes
  • Louis Godart
  • Stephen Jay Gould
  • G. H. Hardy A Mathematician's Apology
  • Aldous Huxley
  • Christopher Marlowe
  • William Shakespeare: text of the plays, and the sonnets
  • Oscar Wilde
  • On-line books

  Dance School

  Cohiba Club, Parma
  

  • And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
    (E coloro che furono visti danzare vennero giudicati pazzi da quelli che non riuscivano a sentire la musica)
  • We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.
    (Dovremmo considerare persi i giorni in cui non abbiamo ballato almeno una volta)

  Friedrich Nietzsche
  Not quite my favourite philosopher, but, in this case, how can I disagree? (Decisamente non il mio filosofo preferito, ma come dargli torto?)

• Since I fit its definition pasted below, I recently joined “The Brights,” whose website I urge you to visit
  • A bright is a person who has a naturalistic worldview
  • A bright's worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements
  • The ethics and actions of a bright are based on a naturalistic worldview
• Il Vernacoliere
• The Skeptical Inquirer
• Comitato Italiano per il Controllo delle Affermazioni sul Paranormale

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